The present invention relates to a video accompaniment apparatus, and more particularly, to a video accompaniment apparatus which provides high-quality pictures and a variety of music, by integrally forming an optical disk on which video and audio information is recorded and a memory in which a great deal of accompaniment and song text information is stored.
In general, a video accompaniment apparatus is connected with a video monitor and audio amplifier, to display the song text information while a song accompaniment is performed. Several types of video accompaniment systems are known, and these include, a laser disk video accompaniment apparatus using a laser disk player (LDP), a compact disk video accompaniment apparatus using a compact disk graphic player (CDGP), and a memory accompaniment apparatus using a memory.
Among the various types, the laser disk video accompaniment apparatus is the best in terms of picture quality and sound quality. However, the number of songs recordable on a single laser disk is restricted to only 20 songs or less and the song search time is long.
A compact disk video accompaniment apparatus has a sound quality as good as that of a laser disk video accompaniment apparatus. However, since a compact disk video accompaniment apparatus can only record a restricted number of still pictures on the sub-code channel of the compact disk, compared with a laser disk, the coupling characteristic between pictures and music is lowered and the number of songs recordable on a single compact disk is limited to only about 15 songs.
In a "Karaoke" compact disk video accompaniment apparatus, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,151,793, the video signal demodulated from the optical disk, on which video and audio information is recorded, and the video signal output from an external signal source, e.g., a camcorder, are superimposed, and graphic data corresponding to the song text demodulated from the optical disk is imposed onto the superimposed video.
A memory accompaniment apparatus cannot offer sound quality as good as that provided by a laser disk video accompaniment apparatus or a compact disk video accompaniment apparatus but can offer accompaniment and song text information for about 1,000-1,500 songs. Also, a memory accompaniment apparatus can search for a song at high speeds.
FIG. 1 shows a memory accompaniment apparatus which provides an accompaniment signal and a caption signal corresponding to the song texts and which is connected with a conventional video monitor and an audio amplifier. A controller 12 for controlling the operation of the apparatus according to a control instruction is connected to the output terminal of an instruction input unit 11 which supplies instructions to the memory accompaniment apparatus. An accompaniment signal generator 13 for generating an accompaniment signal and a caption signal generator 14 for generating a caption signal are connected to the output terminal of the controller 12. An audio synthesizer 16 for synthesizing an accompaniment signal and a voice signal and supplying the synthesized signals to an audio amplifier is connected to the output terminals of the accompaniment signal generator 13 and a voice signal processor 15. The voice signal processor 15, which provides a voice signal to the synthesizer 16, recieves a voice signal via a microphone and processes the voice signal before passing it along to the synthesizer 16. The accompaniment signal generator 13 includes a memory for storing accompaniment information, and the caption signal generator 14 includes a memory for storing song text information.
The operation of the memory accompaniment apparatus having the configuration as shown in FIG. 1 will be briefly described. If a specific song is selected by the instruction input unit 11 and an accompaniment starting instruction is applied to the controller 12, the controller 12 controls the accompaniment signal generator 13 to cause it to generate an accompaniment signal for the song selected. Simultaneously, the controller 12 controls the caption signal generator 14 to cause it to generate a caption signal for the song selected. The output of the caption signal generator 14 is supplied to an external video monitor.
The voice signal output from the voice signal processor 15 is synthesized with the accompaniment signal in the audio synthesizer 16. The voice signal processor 15 processes the voice signal supplied thereto via the microphone. That is to say, the voice signal processor 15 regulates the echo, tone, speed, etc. of the voice signal. The voice signal processed in the voice signal processor is synthesized with the accompaniment signal output from the accompaniment signal generator 13 in the audio synthesizer 16, and the synthesized signal is supplied to an audio amplifier or the like.
Since the memory accompaniment apparatus described stores a lot of songs but does not store video information apart from the caption, the caption corresponding to the song texts should be displayed on the screen of a video monitor or should be superimposed onto a video signal supplied from an external video signal input source.
If a memory accompaniment apparatus, such as shown in FIG. 1, or a conventional video accompaniment apparatus using an optical disk is used independently, the user cannot avoid the drawbacks of each apparatus. If the optical disk player and the aforementioned memory accompaniment apparatus are integrally formed, convenience to the user can be greatly improved by compensating for the respective drawbacks of each type of video accompaniment apparatus.